Summer 2015 Graduates

We are Chris and Katy, avid mountain bikers, trail builders and adventurers. We purchased our BOB trailers in the late 1990’s and immediately fell in love with the freedom of mountain bike touring. We are also avid trail builders and are involved in our local trail building organization, Central Oregon Trail Alliance for over fifteen years.

In 2010, the bike industry added a new “standard” for the attachment of the rear wheel – the “12x142mm axle” – for mountain bikes. A significant improvement for mountain bikes, the 12mm axle adds increased rigidity, creating a stiffer, more responsive back end and improved the rear wheel assembly. When we purchased new mountain bikes in 2012 and 2013, we quickly realized that this new axle did not allow for a BOB attachment. We were temporarily out of luck and could not use a trailer for bike touring or trail building. We found an answer to a question that was being asked.

And that’s how the Robert Axle Project began – out of a passion for bikes and a necessary solution to a bike compatibility problem.

We like to say that we don’t make your bike faster, lighter or sexier. We make it functional.

SlackTech is a company devoted to slacklining. Our company was founded in May of 2013, literally in a campground, the Smith Rock State Park Bivouac to be exact. It was a result of being frustrated with the systems and hardware available for slacklining. Because our initial group was (and still consists of) a ragtag group of slackers, climbers and general dirtbags, we had a lot of time to sit and complain about how we thought things should be. Eventually, we got to the point of saying, "lets freaking do something about it!" Luckily, our rag tag group of slackers, climbers and dirtbags also had education and professional experience in manufacturing engineering, product design, machining, advanced physics, computer programming and some of that legal stuff. We figured we knew enough collectively to make things work.